The Book's Form
by little.tel
Summary: A post-movie oneshot. Simon, Mallory, and Helen have a bit of a rough time after defeating Mulgarath. They all nearly died after all. And something has been bothering Jared.


**The Book's Form**

Mulgarath and his goblins had finally been defeated. The book was safe and the danger had passed. Exhausted by the adrenaline and fear from the battle, the entire Grace family slept soundly with not a single dream between the four of them. The next few nights were not as easy.

For a week, Helen dreamed that she didn't believe Jared in time to be of any help. And for a week she was helpless as her children died over and over again in her dreams.

Mallory experienced nightmares of being surrounded and attacked by things she could not see. The invisible things would slash and stab at her until she couldn't move and then they would leave her lying there, forced to watch, as they then attacked an already wounded Simon. For weeks she awoke every night trembling in terror, unable to fall back to sleep.

Simon began to suffer from night terrors. Every night he would be captured by goblins once again and in his nightmares, Mulgarath deemed him worthless and would let the goblins eat him. He was always alive when they started.

In contrast, Jared never woke and was unable to fall back asleep. Jared never woke in the middle of the night covered in sweat and panting to breathe. Jared never cried out in his sleep and woke screaming. Instead, Jared slept deep and nothing that happened in the night, not even his twin's screams of terror could wake him before the sun rose. But every morning, without fail, he woke as the sun did.

Worried, his family questioned him about his dreams. What were they? Did he want to talk about them? Could he remember them at all? But Jared's answer was always a simple no and then to change the topic.

Weeks passed and time began to dull the memories enough that the nightmares faded enough to become more bearable. Helen found that checking on her children after wakening from her dreams would calm her racing heart and let her fall back to sleep. Mallory discovered that a cup of hot chocolate and a simple hug from her mom before bed, helped to chase the nightmares away. After only a few days, Simon realized that his night terrors weren't nearly as bad if his cat slept with him. Jared still slept deep and still got up at the first light of morning.

In less than a month, the horrors that had haunted them at night nearly disappeared. The only things that reminded them that it all wasn't just a dream, was Thimbletack's constant presence in the house, and the occasional appearances of Hogsqueal and the griffon, Byron. For Helen, Mallory, and Simon, life returned to the way it was before they were introduced to the world of the Fey.

For Jared, it was a slightly different story.

Even after everything that had happened with the goblins and the ogre, Jared never suffered from any nightmares like the rest of his family. Even with all of the terror that he felt facing Mulgarath by himself, or being attacked by goblins and mole trolls, he didn't have any gruesome nightmares of what might have been. Instead he simply had a single dream, which consisted of a single simple sentence repeated over and over again, until he could hear it even when he was awake.

In the dream, he is sitting on a rock under a large tree in the Sacred Glade, and kneeling in front of him is Arthur Spiderwick. Arthur grabs him by the shoulders, and looking him right in the eye, says, "You are the book now." At these words the entire Glade, which had been filled with the distant sound of the Sylph singing, grows silent. Arthur's mouth keeps moving, but no sound comes out. The dream begins to blur as the colors seem to run together and grow brighter and brighter. And then he's floating in a white nothing and Arthur Spiderwick's words echo around him.

"You are the book now."

Most of the time this dream, with it's single sentence, doesn't bother him. Most of the time he's a normal ten-year-old boy like his twin. A boy who likes sports and sometimes has a problem controlling his anger. A boy who goes to school and sometimes gets into trouble. A boy with three admittedly magical friends, but that's not too unusual considering their now friends of the whole family. A boy who has only a single dream that he cannot wake from until the sun comes up.

Jared's come to realize, in the months following the defeat of Mulgarath, that he isn't like his family anymore. Sure, they can See like he does. But they don't Know like he does.

Because he is the Book now.

And sometimes, when he's out in the forest by himself, that dream about a single moment where Arthur Spiderwick proclaimed a single sentence, scares him to death.

Because, he is the Book now.

And the entire Fairy world knows it.


End file.
